Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 159)
WEDNESDAY 12 MAY 2004
INSPECTOR ROBIN
DEMPSEY
Q140 Mr Hepburn: How do you actually
go round investigating a hate crime on the disabled? Can you give
us an idea of how you get evidence? Do you take any special factors
into consideration? What practical problems might you come across?
Inspector Dempsey: We do not currently
record incidents against disabled people, but I could outline
what we do in respect of racial and homophobic incidents.
Q141 Mr Hepburn: Yes; please.
Inspector Dempsey: The way the
Police Service recognise an incident is racist or homophobic is
on the perception of the victim. That can cause some difficulties
because there may not necessarily be evidence to suggest that
it is either racial or homophobic. We will record it if the victim
or any other person reports it as such. That is in line with the
Stephen Lawrence inquiry report. The police will then mark the
motivation in their system against the incident and that is how
we then collate the number of incidents which have either a racial
or homophobic motivation.
Q142 Chairman: So it is up to the
victim to decide, whatever the crime, whether it is has been committed
because the victim is from an ethnic minority or from the gay
or lesbian community.
Inspector Dempsey: It can be the
victim, but it can also be a police officer or it could be someone
who is not involved—
Q143 Chairman: Does that give you
problems? It is relatively easy for a police officer to say that
the assailant is white and the victim is Chinese or Black or Indian
or Asian or whatever, but rather harder to determine his sexuality.
Inspector Dempsey: Certainly in
relation to racist incidents people are usually visibly from a
minority ethnic group and it makes it easier.
Q144 Chairman: That is what I am
trying to say.
Inspector Dempsey: In relation
to homophobic incidents the reduced number of reports at 71, which
is the new statistic released, probably reflects that those incidents
are usually reported by the victim in the majority. However, we
would get reports from third parties.
Q145 Chairman: So it would be for
the victim to say they have been assaulted because they are gay.
Inspector Dempsey: That would
certainly be our experience; that would be the case in the majority
of reports.
Q146 Mr Hepburn: In light of that
answer to the Chairman can you tell us how satisfied you are with
your recording process and how you think it could be improved?
Inspector Dempsey: We are certainly
working to improve it at the minute. Because we deal with incidents
and crimes and record both, what we are looking at currently is
the introduction of a new IT system. We are looking to develop
our indicative crime information system because what we have now
is a crime analyst in each police area and also within our headquarters
departments. In order to ensure that we can analyse those incidents
properly we must make sure they are on the system. We are extending
our system in order that incidents and crimes of a racial and
homophobic nature are on the system and that will allow us to
do that. The reality is that we are not completely satisfied at
the minute, but we are working to address what we see as shortfalls.
Q147 Mr Hepburn: Can you give us
a picture, an overview, on the role of minority liaison officers?
How effective do you believe they have been, what are your recruitment
policies for these officers and how do you deploy these officers
throughout Northern Ireland, because I think Belfast has a predominance
of the crimes we are talking about?
Inspector Dempsey: In every police
district in Northern Ireland there is at least one minority liaison
officer. The minority liaison officers were brought into post
in 1997 for racial incidents and then in 2000 they took on the
additional responsibility of supporting victims of homophobic
incidents. In Belfast the majority of racial incidents would be
concentrated in South Belfast; new statistics suggest 147 such
attacks reported. In that area there clearly is a need to have
more than one minority liaison officer if we are going to support
people in the right manner. There would be a number of additional
officers within each of the sectors across South Belfast. Their
role is primarily one to support victims, to provide them with
information, both in respect of support services and also in relation
to the progress of investigations. They also have a role to build
relationships within their particular area with minority ethnic
groups, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups as well.
Q148 Mr Hepburn: In your experience
have you ever come across any evidence of institutional racism
within the Northern Ireland police force?
Inspector Dempsey: Certainly within
the Police Service of Northern Ireland we have looked very closely
at the recommendations of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry report
and the definition of institutional racism. We have looked very
closely and what we endeavour to do is learn from the experiences
of our mainland colleagues and from the criticisms which have
been directed at some of them. This is certainly not something
which can be addressed as a one-off. It is something which needs
to be addressed continuously. The definition refers to police
officers being professional at all times and that is underpinned
in section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act. Also it requires police
officers to be professional, they need to have no stereotypes,
no prejudices and what the Police Service of Northern Ireland
are working to is to ensure that our officers are both trained
in respect of those areas and that they recognise that they must
be professional to ensure that these things are dealt with in
the appropriate manner.
Mr Campbell: I just want to ask a question
on the statistics which you have released and understand the reason
for the timing of them. On some occasions when statistics like
this are used it can lead to sensationalist reporting in the media.
Each of the tables for each of the years shows that on the racial
incident table there has been an increase year on year and quite
rightly you said that they doubled last year. On the homophobic
incidents, is it true, as the table seems to indicate, that up
until this year the number of homophobic attacks was actually
declining? I see that in 2000-01 it was 57, then the following
year 40, the following year 35 and it is only in the past 12 months
that there has been an increase. I am wondering about two things
from that. Is what it appears to be in the table right? Secondly,
are we seeing a blip and will we not know for some time whether
that is the case?
Q149 Chairman: Or is it, as with
so many statistics, that you are paying more attention to it?
Inspector Dempsey: What we would
say is that in the last couple of years the police service, recognising
under-reporting, have worked very hard to address this. It was
certainly concerned that the number of homophobic incidents fell
from 40 to 35. We are encouraged that it has risen and we would
see that as a combination of reporting and incidents. The racial
incidents have doubled and certainly we would be encouraged that
that was a combination of reporting and actual incidents. We would
have been very concerned, given the recognised under-reporting,
if either of those two statistics had continued to fall.
Q150 Chairman: Would you then say
that the statistics, because Mr Campbell is quite right that these
are the sort of things which make headlines, are more a result
of the PSNI getting their act together about reporting and collating
these statistics than the fact that there is a significant increase
in racial and homophobic crime?
Inspector Dempsey: It has to be
said that it is probably a combination of both. In the racial
incidents, for example, the increase has mainly been in criminal
damage and physical assault, which are both crimes which we would
have hoped would have been incidents reported to the police anyhow,
although there have been occasions when that has not been the
case. What we have resisted is being asked to ask for a reduction
in those statistics, because we still feel that there are many
more incidents which go unreported and we would even want to see,
not an increase in incidents clearly, but an increase in reports,
which would be fine.
Q151 Chairman: Why have you not recorded
sectarian incidents?
Inspector Dempsey: There has been
no recording of sectarian incidents by the police up to this time.
It is something we are currently looking at.
Q152 Chairman: At what stage is that
consultation on proposals to monitor and record these incidents?
It is extraordinary that you are now concentrating on racial ones,
you are concentrating on homophobic ones, quite rightly so I may
say, yet the sectarian incidents go unrecorded.
Inspector Dempsey: It is surprising
to note that despite all that has happened in Northern Ireland
over the various years, when we started to look at this there
was no agreed definition. What the police had to do was decide
firstly how we were going to define this and how we were going
to record it. Would it include just matters of religious motivation
or would it include political motivation as well? What we did
was consult with a number of organisations in respect of how we
proposed to do that. We have a broad agreement now on how we can
take this forward and this is something which will be included
in—
Q153 Chairman: What is the broad
agreement?
Inspector Dempsey: What we would
intend to do is record sectarian incidents in a similar way to
the way we record racial and homophobic incidents, along the Lawrence
line of "perceived to be sectarian". What we will then
do is record incidents both of a religious and political motivation.
Q154 Reverend Smyth: On that very
point, you are aware of the recent situation in South Belfast.
What about the possibility of police officers not recording things
when they are reported to you?
Inspector Dempsey: We would hope
that every report of a racial or homophobic nature, and indeed
sectarian when it comes in, would be recorded. We certainly ensure
that there is a means to do that and it is not just down to the
perception of the police officer, but down to the perception of
the victim. Where it is reported, we will record it, we will monitor
it and we will look to see how it has been dealt with.
Q155 Reverend Smyth: The point is
that it is not recorded. When people go in and report and it is
not recorded and then immediately police officers or a spokesperson
say that there have been no complaints, then it is obvious that
complaints which were made were not recorded. Surely it is important
to keep that record too.
Inspector Dempsey: It is absolutely
important. One of the areas in respect of racial incidents, where
quite often people will comment publicly about what the police
did not do about this or that, is that when we look at our records
we realise it was not recorded. If the police are to prevent attacks
they must be recorded. If we do not know about them we cannot
prevent further attacks or deal with those which have already
taken place.
Reverend Smyth: I am dealing with ones
which were reported and ultimately it was admitted they were.
Guidance has been given to people now that when they go into a
police station they should make sure they take the number of the
person to whom they reported it.
Q156 Mr Hepburn: Could you give us
an idea of what training is provided to your police officers in
dealing with hate crimes?
Inspector Dempsey: Training is
delivered to student officers in the police college at Garnerville
in relation to racism and diversity training, cultural awareness
training. We then have district trainers in each of the police
districts who deliver training to existing police officers by
way of initial training in areas like this or updating training
as well. Our department has a specific role in relation to training
for minority liaison officers and we look after that. We have
carried out religious diversity training. Recently we held a seminar
where we invited representatives of all the main minority ethnic
and homophobic support groups in to speak to those officers. I
was recently involved in the training of all detectives. One afternoon
was set aside specifically to focus on the importance of investigating
hate crime.
Q157 Chairman: You talked to us earlier
about minority liaison officers. How many of them come from ethnic
minority communities?
Inspector Dempsey: None.
Q158 Chairman: Would it be helpful
if some of them did?
Inspector Dempsey: It would be
helpful to get police officers with a minority ethnic background
into the police service regardless of what role they would play.
There is obviously an agreed under-representation; we have in
the region of 20 officers who would be visibly from minority ethnic
backgrounds. Clearly we recognise that it would be important that
that be representative of the community. However, the whole legislation
in respect of recruitment does not specifically cater for that
at the moment.
Q159 Chairman: We are well aware
of that. That is one of your problems. Of those 20, has anybody
considered making one of them a minority liaison officer?
Inspector Dempsey: The minority
liaison officer in most police areas would be an additional role
in community safety and a post within the community safety department.
The post is advertised and every police officer has an opportunity
to apply for that post. When they apply for that post and are
successful, they then would be appointed a minority liaison officer.
Certainly it is a post they could apply for and I think it would
be a great encouragement to the different groups that a police
officer from a minority ethnic background was involved.
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